The next morning he was up betimes, and paid an early visit at the Hofapotheke or Court-laboratory of the town, the manager of which would, as he was informed, be able to give him Dr. Hildebrand's address. The manager, who was a very little man, with large protruding eyes covered with great horn spectacles, and very large flap ears, and who looked so like an owl that George almost expected him to hop on to the counter, was very polite but extremely reticent.
"Oh yes; he had the pleasure of the Herr Doctor's acquaintance. Who was there in the great world to whom the berühmter Herr Doctor was not known? It was in Dorrendorf that this so justly celebrated man formerly resided had. Was it not true? But where did he reside now? Ah, that was something quite otherwise. Was the Mr. Englishman who spoke the German language with so excellent an accent--was he perhaps of the medical profession?"
"No; but his father. And perhaps the courteous manager of the Court laboratory might know the name of Wainwright."
"Vainrayte!" The courteous manager knew it perfectly. He had read the even so clever treatises on the subject of "Mania and Mental Diseases," which that so justly renowned physician had written. And the Mr. Englishman was the son of the Doctor von Vainrayte! There would be no difficulty then in letting him know the address of Dr. Hildebrand.
And after further interchange of bows and courtesies, George took his departure, bearing with him the old physician's address.
Dr. Hildebrand lived some distance from the town, in a little road fringed on either side by detached villas standing in their trim gardens, the road itself turning out of a noble allée of chestnut-trees, which forms one of the principal outlets of the town. All the gardens were neatly kept, and all the houses seemed clean and trim and orderly; but George remarked that the Doctor's house and garden seemed the neatest of all. He was almost afraid to stand on the doorstep as he rang the bell, lest he should sully its whiteness; and, indeed, the old woman who opened the door immediately looked at the prints of his boots with great disfavour.
She answered his question of whether the Doctor were at home by another, asking him what was his business; and was evidently inclined to be disagreeable at first, but softened in her manner when George told her that he had come all the way from England in order to see her master.
She smiled at this, and condescended to admit him, not without a parting glance at the muddy footprints, and without enjoining him to rub his feet on the square scraper standing inside the hall which did duty for a mat. Then she ushered him into a small and meanly-furnished dining-room, which, like every other apartment in the house, smelt very strongly of tobacco, and there left him.
George could not help smiling to himself as he looked round the room, the furniture and appointments of which recalled to him such pleasant memories of his German student days. There on the little sideboard was the coarse whity-brown cloth, so different from English table-linen, rolled up and waiting for use. There was the battered red japanned bread-tray, containing the half-dozen white brodchens, the lump of sauerbrod, and the thin slices of schwarzbrod. There were the three large cruets, so constantly required for salad-mixing purposes, and the blunt black-handled knives and forks. On the wall was a print from Horace Vernet's ghastly illustration of Bürger's Lenore, showing the swift death-ride, the maiden lying in fainting terror across the horse's neck, borne in the arms of the corpse, whose upraised visor shows its hideous features.
There were also two or three portraits of eminent German physicians and surgeons. On the table lay folded copies of the Cologne Gazette and the Augsburg Zeitung; and each corner of the room was garnished with a spittoon.